With the playoffs just a few days away, the injury status for a number of key players is going to be updated on a near-daily basis. Such is the magnification of postseason hockey where one missed game could turn the tides of an entire series.  

Enter Mathew Barzal, who hasn't played in nearly two months due to injury. The Islanders got a bit of good news on Wednesday:  

Ladies and gents, Mathew Barzal is on the ice ahead of #Isles morning skate.

— Stefen Rosner (@stefen_rosner) April 12, 2023

He didn't stay for the team practice, but the coach called him day-to-day after their morning skate. That is a good indication of a player that could be nearing a return, though “day-to-day” can mean a lot of different things the closer the postseason gets.

Speaking of the Islanders, with a 4-2 win at home to Montreal on Wednesday night, they punched their ticket to the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Islanders handily out-played a Canadiens team that is riding out a lottery season, taking advantage of Pittsburgh losing the night before at home to Chicago, to get to late-April hockey. That means all 16 teams are qualified with two days left in the regular season.

Brock Nelson scored twice, bringing his season total to 36 goals and 75 points in all 82 games. He nearly reached last season's breakout 37-goal total and saw his points per game go up 10%. It's not often a player hits their stride in their 30s, but here we are.

Noah Dobson had two assists, one on the power play, to go along with three shots and six blocks. Though he finishes the season with nearly identical goal and assist totals from a year ago, his blocks (1.26) and hits (0.77) per game were down considerably from a year ago (1.93 and 0.98, respectively). A small drop in ice time doesn’t completely explain that drop in peripherals, especially when he added shots.

It is a well-earned playoff appearance for the Islanders. Oliver Wahlstrom has missed over half the season, Mathew Barzal missed nearly one-third of the campaign, and Bo Horvat hasn't been a great producer since the trade, yet they still managed to reach their first goal. Ilya Sorokin is clearly a huge part of this, but that's also what makes them dangerous to the team they face in the first round.

Sometime next week will be a fantasy post-mortem on the Penguins, but for now, it was a wasted season by management. The injuries on the blue line (and in net) didn't help, but it was a good top-6 that had a now-healthy Kris Letang still playing well. This was a playoff team, at the least, with a bottom-6 that could contribute. A better power play, too.

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On the flipside, not good news about Gabriel Landeskog:

From last night in Denver.. it's the last week of the regular season, and the Avs are still unsure when or if their captain will return. https://t.co/WvejWaYzVV

— Emily Kaplan (@emilymkaplan) April 12, 2023

At the outset of the season, it looked like he may be able to return by this point. It clearly has not come to pass and he's not close to a return. Perhaps a deep playoff run gets him in the lineup at some point, but certainly not anytime soon.

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Sam Bennett may be an option for Game 1 of the playoffs:

#FlaPanthers coach Paul Maurice says that Sam Bennett will be out tomorrow against Carolina.

He is not progressing the way the team wanted him to and they will use the next 3-to-4 days to figure out if he's good to go for Game 1 of the playoffs.

— Colby Guy (@ColbyDGuy) April 12, 2023

We may not get clarity here until the Panthers hit the ice for the first warmups of the postseason. That makes playoff pools a little tough to navigate because there's clearly fantasy value in his role if he can return, and more value for others if he doesn't (like Anton Lundell).

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There are still technically a couple of days left in the regular season, but all playoff spots have been wrapped up thanks to the New York-Montreal game on Wednesday night. Today and tomorrow represent my only two Ramblings before the postseason starts, so I want to get my thoughts down on paper. We will talk about each playoff team from a macro perspective before discussing particular players.

Before we get to all that, be sure to pick up your copy of the 2023 Dobber Hockey Playoff Draft List. It is customizable for individual fantasy leagues and can be the help fantasy owners need in their respective pools this spring.

Secondly, we always have our Dobber Playoff Panel where series winners and the Conn Smythe Trophy are predicted by the editors and writers here at Dobber Hockey. That will be out either this weekend or on Monday, so readers can get the collective thoughts of a big portion of the Dobber crew in that article dropping in the next few days.

Finally, these are just thoughts on individual players. Alex discussed strategies yesterday in his Ramblings and I don't have any great insight to add, so just go read his thoughts.  

Today, we're going to touch on the eight teams in the Western Conference, and tomorrow we'll move to the East. We will begin at the bottom of the Conference and move our way up. Data from our Frozen Tools or Natural Stat Trick, unless otherwise indicated.

Winnipeg

It has been a brutal slide for Winnipeg, going 12-13-2 over their last 27 games heading to Thursday night, and that includes a very recent stretch of five wins in six games. Leading up to the All-Star break, the team was 15^th in expected goals for per 60 minutes and 13^th in actual goals. The goals have dropped off considerably at the team is shooting 8.7% since that mark, with only San Jose, Philadelphia, Carolina, and Pittsburgh coming in lower. They haven't played poorly, per se, but they'll need to start finishing better if they want to a deep playoff run.

The top stars are well-known to fantasy enthusiasts: Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor, Josh Morrissey, and the rest of the top PP unit are surely going to be on draft lists everywhere. The guy to keep in mind, though, is Cole Perfetti. On the season, he is second among the team's forwards in points/60 at 5-on-5, and had Scoring Chance Contributions nearly a full standard deviation above the league average (from Corey Sznajder's Patreon):

In fact, the team has lost more games than its won since his injury. He will only have value in deeper playoff formats because he may not return until the end of the first round, or the second round if they get that far, but a deep Winnipeg run could easily see him out-produce some of their third- and fourth-liners.

Seattle

In my head canon, the Seattle Kraken are the new St. Louis Blues. The Blues, in their heyday over the 4-5 previous seasons, were good at gaming public expected goals models and scoring very well. In 2022-23, the Kraken generated the fewest expected goals for per actual goal scored at 0.82, with the next-closest team being, you guessed it, St. Louis at 0.87. Perhaps they just got lucky with shooting percentages, and there is some element of that, but Seattle looks poised to finish with the highest 5-on-5 team shooting percentage in an 82-game season since at least 2007. There has to be more to it than just luck.

One of the keys to Seattle's success is scoring depth. Sure, Jared McCann scoring 40 goals helps, but he's their only 25-goal scorer unless Matty Beniers finds the back of the net in their season finale against Vegas. McCann will also be their only 70-point player. In that sense, there are a lot of options on this roster and outside the top line, a lot are very similar. With that said, Daniel Sprong is 14^th in the league in shots per 60 minutes this season, out-pacing names like Evander Kane and William Nylander. He has also added nearly a minute of TOI per game over the last few months. As a bottom-6 scoring option, there are few better in the NHL this season.

Minnesota

Minnesota is in a situation where they need all their players at the top of their game to make a deep run, and the injury to Joel Eriksson Ek may have ended things before they begin. We have seen teams do miraculous things in the playoffs without a star player – Tampa Bay without Steven Stamkos comes to mind – but it's a big uphill climb for this team. Their centre depth is now Ryan Hartman, Frederick Gaudreau, Sam Steel, Connor Dewar, and Marco Rossi. So, yeah.

The top line will be drafted, as will the second line, or at least Matt Boldy and Marcus Johansson. Gaudreau is an interesting name here. His points/60 at 5-on-5 over the last two seasons is 1.72; Eriksson Ek's sits at 1.85. In a full 82-game season, that might mean a 2- to 3-point difference. In other words, the big difference between Eriksson Ek and Gaudreau, points-wise, has been the former's high TOI levels and his power play role. In a three-round run, Gaudreau could reach double-digit points, even without a PP role, just because of the minutes left behind by Eriksson Ek.

Los Angeles

It has been a rollercoaster season for the Kings. Up until December 6^th, the first game in net for Pheonix Copley, the team was 12^th in the league in goals per minute, out-scoring teams like the Avalanche, Jets, Leafs, and Rangers. They were last in save percentage, though, and that meant the team lost (14) more games than it won (13) through the first third of the season. Since he reached the lineup, they're 20^th in save percentage, which is a huge improvement, and are sixth in the league in points percentage. Getting back a healthy Kevin Fiala and Gabriel Vilardi is going to be key to this team having a chance at a deep postseason run, or else they could struggle to generate goals.

Assuming a healthy, normal lineup, most of the usual names will be drafted. Though he hasn't taken a huge step in his development, do not forget about Arthur Kaliyev. His 82-game pace for this season is nearly 20 goals and 42 points, which is pretty good for a player getting under 12 minutes of TOI per game. The Kings' second PP unit has usually been their better one, and he should get those minutes, even in a healthy lineup. He is another guy that can put up double-digit points with a Conference Final trip.

Dallas

The 2022 playoffs showed us what Jake Oettinger can do as he nearly took the first round from Calgary in one of the best single-series goaltending performances we've ever seen. The difference for the 2023 playoffs is a Dallas team that is top-10 in league scoring rather than outside the top-20 as they were a year ago. Added scoring depth takes a lot of pressure off the top line, and the power play is one that can decimate any team in the Western Conference. Whether their blue line holds up is another matter, but we're about to see a lot of minutes from Miro Heiskanen.

Aside from the top PP guys, and the Jamie Benn line, keep Mason Marchment in mind. He has been skating as he ramps up from a knee injury, and should be a part of the playoff roster for Game 1 of the first round. He had a brutal cold streak in the middle of the season, but had six points in five games just before the injury, which coincided with Max Domi being acquired from Chicago. Domi is a very good playmaker and if he can keep Marchment going when he returns, Marchment could provide solid scoring depth for fantasy playoff rosters.  

Colorado

A year ago, at this time, I had concerns with the Avs. Their final 20 games saw them outside the top-10 by 5-on-5 xG share, 9^th by points percentage, and 13^th by goal share. Needless to say, they were just fine come playoff time.

It feels different this year, though. As of Wednesday night, they were sixth in 5-on-5 xG share over their last 20 games, second by points percentage, and fourth by goal share. However, this is part of their schedule over the last 20 games: San Jose (x3), Arizona (x3), Anaheim (x2), Montreal, and Chicago. Half their games have come against five of the bottom-6 teams in the league. The rest of this stretch included Pittsburgh, Detroit, and Ottawa. In other words, they have been great recently, but the schedule was about as soft as it could get. They will be without Gabriel Landeskog, Cale Makar seems to be injured every other week, Artturi Lehkonen is making his way back, and they still don't have a 2C to replace Nazem Kadri. This isn't 2022 anymore.

The power-play guys will be popular picks, as will the elite defencemen like Devon Toews and Bowen Byram. We should be keeping Lars Eller in mind, though. He is earning more TOI over the last 10 games than any forward outside the top PP unit, plus Evan Rodrigues. Eller won't get a lot of minutes regardless, but his role seems somewhat secure even if the team gets healthy considering their lack of centres.

Edmonton

This edition of the Oilers is either the best or second-best team they've assembled in the Connor McDavid era, giving respect to the 2016-17 edition. It was around American Thanksgiving that the team stopped giving regular starts to Jack Campbell. Since then, they are tied for second in the league in xG share at 5-on-5, third in goal share at 5-on-5, second in overall goal share, and third in points percentage (and comfortably leading the West). Edmonton's power play is easily the best we've seen in the salary cap era, and arguably in the history of the league. If teams can't stay out of the penalty box, the Oilers are probably favourites in the West. As much as I slag Ken Holland, he does get credit for moves like Klim Kostin and Mattias Ekholm.

All the very obvious players will be drafted, and that includes the secondary guys like Ekholm and Evander Kane. What about Nick Bjugstad, though? He hasn't played big minutes since getting to Edmonton, but no forward does outside of the top PP unit and Kane. He has 31 shots on goal in his last 15 games, skating under 14 minutes a game. At the least, he's posting shot volume, and that's more than a lot of the depth options in Edmonton can boast.

Vegas

It is hard to say what to make of Vegas. Through American Thanksgiving, or 22 games, the team was third by points percentage and fifth by xG share at 5-on-5. From Thanksgiving to the Mark Stone's injury on January 12^th, a span of 22 more games, they were 18^th by points percentage and 15^th by xG share. The next 19 games, leading to the Trade Deadline, was more of the same. Since the Trade Deadline, their xG share has gotten worse but great goaltending has helped them win more games. In other words, since Thanksgiving, the team hasn't played particularly well, but stretches of great goaltending has given them a chance at the Western Conference title.

Until we know the playoff status of Jack Eichel and Mark Stone, it's hard to say which players to target. However, Nicolas Roy is third among the team's forwards in TOI over the last 10 games, barely exceeding Jonathan Marchessault. He has been shooting more as well. If the team can't get healthy, he could have a featured role for as long as the team stays in the postseason.

Alright, those are my thoughts on the West. We'll get to the East tomorrow.